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Friday, April 14, 2017

Dear Friends,I hope you are having a good week! It is beautiful Spring weather here and I am looking forward to Easter weekend. I thought you might enjoy sharing some vintage Easter cards today. They all include dogs!A little dachshund helps a girl with the ribbon on a giant Easter egg on this vintage postcard.

A little yellow chick sits on an Easter egg and watches a dachshund on this vintage postcard.

A dachshund and a Jack Russell Terrier chase a bunny rabbit up a giant egg. (Vintage postcard)

Two cute dachshunds find some flowers. (Vintage postard)

This is a RPPC (real photo postcard) featuring a little girl with a dog and an Easter basket.

Vintage postcard -- a dog surprises a chick!

Vintage postcard -- a dog is surprised by a chick who has just hatched.

Vintage Easter postcard - did this dog hatch from the giant Easter egg?

On this vintage postcard a dog climbs on top of two big Easter eggs.

A bulldog makes friends with a chick on this vintage postcard.

This vintage Easter card is for "daughter and her husband." A cocker spaniel lounges in a big straw hat.

A Scottish Terrier pulls an Easter egg carriage on this vintage card.

A hound dog has a gift for the Easter Parade on this Mid-Century vintage card.

This is one of my favorites! A sweet puppy sits outside of a cute storybook cottage on this vintage Easter card.

I hope you enjoyed these vintage Easter cards, and I wish you a wonderful holiday weekend!Next week I will begin my new series about pet collectibles. If you collect any pet themed items, I would love to include your pictures at the blog! Just let me know (with your email) in the comments. Thanks!Love,Abby xoxoxo

Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that
once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and
propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become
intertwined—an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from
the author of the New York Times Notable Book The Hazards of Good Breeding.

Amid the ashes of Nazi Germany’s defeat, Marianne von Lingenfels
returns to the once-grand castle of her husband’s ancestors, an imposing
stone fortress now fallen into ruin following years of war. The widow
of a resister murdered in the failed July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate
Adolf Hitler, Marianne plans to uphold the promise she made to her
husband’s brave conspirators: to find and protect their wives, her
fellow resistance widows.

First Marianne rescues six-year-old Martin, the son of her dearest
childhood friend, from a Nazi reeducation home. Together, they make
their way across the smoldering wreckage of their homeland to Berlin,
where Martin’s mother, the beautiful and naive Benita, has fallen into
the hands of occupying Red Army soldiers. Then she locates Ania, another
resister’s wife, and her two boys, now refugees languishing in one of
the many camps that house the millions displaced by the war.

As Marianne assembles this makeshift family from the ruins of her
husband’s resistance movement, she is certain their shared pain and
circumstances will hold them together. But she quickly discovers that
the black-and-white, highly principled world of her privileged past has
become infinitely more complicated, filled with secrets and dark
passions that threaten to tear them apart. Eventually, all three women
must come to terms with the choices that have defined their lives
before, during, and after the war—each with their own unique share of
challenges.

Written with the devastating emotional power of The Nightingale, Sarah’s Key, and The Light Between Oceans,
Jessica Shattuck’s evocative and utterly enthralling novel offers a
fresh perspective on one of the most tumultuous periods in history.
Combining piercing social insight and vivid historical atmosphere, The Women in the Castle
is a dramatic yet nuanced portrait of war and its repercussions that
explores what it means to survive, love, and, ultimately, to forgive in
the wake of unimaginable hardship.

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The Women in the Castle tells the story of three women, all German widows after World War II. Marianne is the wife of a resistance fighter. She promised her husband she would help the wives of other resisters. Benita was married to Marianne's best friend from childhood. She is beautiful and naive. Ania was liberated from a camp at the end of the war. All of these women have children. They come together to share their lives in an old castle.

The stories of these women intertwine. The book moves back and forth in time - before the war, during the war, and after the war. It has an intriguing manner of storytelling where little bits of the women's individual stories are told in different narratives. As you read on, the details are filled in.

Jessica Shattuck does a masterful job at delineating these characters. They are well developed and very different from each other. She also does a fine job at the transitions of time in this novel.

I am fascinated by the World War II time period and enjoy fiction set during the 1940's. This novel, set in Germany, deals with very dark times and the details are often disturbing. (As an animal lover and vegetarian there was a scene involving a horse that was very hard to read.)

There are also moments of beauty, like the gifts that the German children in these families receive from American Quakers. I found this so moving:

"They were full of fabulous items: oranges, toothbrushes, andy bars, a tin of something called Kraft cheese, and chewing gum. These were accompanied by handwritten cards from Amerian hildren - pictures drawn in bright wax crayons. Martin's card had a drawing of a fat brown-and-white cat with a red-and-white striped bow. It read As a token of our country's goodwill and it was signed by Amy (age eight) and Roger (age six). Martin tried to imagine Amy and Roger and the box of colors they used to create this card. He pictured them wearing crisp store-bought clothing and new shoes with thick soles and no worn-out places. He was sure they each owned their own bicycle and left food uneaten on their plates. Martin pictured this not so much with envy as with wonder -- what an amazing thing to be an American!" (p. 141).

The Women in the Castle offers a unique look at history, powerfully told.It is unique, moving, often heartbreaking, and unforgettable.

Author BioJessica Shattuck is the award-winning author of The Hazards of Good Breeding, which was a New York Times Notable Book and finalist for the PEN/Winship Award, and Perfect Life. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Glamour, Mother Jones, Wired, and The Believer,
among other publications. A graduate of Harvard University, she
received her MFA from Columbia University. She lives with her husband
and three children in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Find out more about Jessica at her website and connect with her on Facebook.

About Me

Trish is a long-time online seller who loves all things vintage, but especially vintage children's books and ephemera. In other lives, worked as a bookstore manager and preschool teacher. Always pursuing vintage treasures, great reads, interesting words, and happiness.